CircleMUD 2.0 Release Announcement
toc 'Circle 2.0 Release' July, 1993 Wake the kids and find the dog, because it's the FTP release of Circle 2.0! That's right -- CircleMUD 2.0 is done and is now available for anonymous FTP at ftp.cs.jhu.edu! CircleMUD is highly structured from a programming aspect and relatively unstructured from a game-design aspect. If you're looking for a huge MUD with billions of spells, skills, classes, races, and areas, Circle will probably disappoint you severely. Circle still has only the 4 original Diku classes, the original spells, the original skills, and about a dozen areas. On the other hand, if you're looking for a highly stable, well-developed, well-organized "blank slate" MUD upon which you can hang your OWN ideas for spells, skills, classes, and areas, then Circle might be just what you're looking for. Just take a gander at some of Circle 2.0's niftier features: In-memory mobile and object prototypes and string sharing for decreased memory usage and blazingly fast zone resets All large realloc()s have been removed and replaced by boot-time record counting and a single malloc() for superior memory efficiency Split world/obj/mob/zon/shp files for easy addition of areas; plus, all the world files are still in the original Diku format for compatibility with existing areas Boot-time and run-time error checking of most data files with diagnostic messages a lot more helpful than "Segmentation Fault"! Player mail system and bank Rewritten board system: boards are now stable, robust, more intelligent, and easily expandable -- adding a new board is as easy as adding another line to an array ANSI color codes with a fully documented programmers' interface On-line system logs Optional automatically regenerating wizlist -- a final end to new immortals constantly asking you when they'll be added to the immlist! "config.c" file allows you to change aspects of the game such as playerkilling/playerthieving legality, max number of objects rentable, and nameserver usage -- WITHOUT recompiling the entire MUD! All text (help, mortal/immort MOTDs, etc.) is rebootable at run-time with the "reboot" command All players are given a unique serial number -- no more messy, time consuming str_cmp()s when you're trying to identify people! Fully integrated and robust rent/crash system -- allows normal renting, cryo-renting, crash protection, and forced rent (at an increased price) after an hour of idling All the standard wizard stuff you're used to: level-sensitive invisibility, user defined poofin/poofouts, and a wizline Advanced 'set' command which allows you to set dozens of aspects of players -- even if they aren't logged in! Stat also allows you to stat people who aren't logged in! Intelligent 'autorun' script handles different types of reboots, organizing your system logs, and more! Circle comes with more than a dozen utilities, all fully documented, to make maintenance a snap! And much, much more! 'Rave Reviews:' : Listen to all the rave reviews of CircleMUD 2.0! :: "Wasn’t your final project due last week?" ''-- A. Classmate'' :: “Are you really a sixth year senior?” ''-- I. Graduated'' ::Give it a try -- what do you have to lose other than your GPA/job, friends, and life? 'Asshole Control' Unfortunately, the original Circle attracted more than its fair share of bad people when it was alive, and this led to an impressive list of security and "asshole control" features: : Three types of site banning available: 'all' to refuse all connections, 'new' to refuse new players, or 'select' to refuse new players and all registered players who don't have a SITEOK flag. : Wizlock command allows you to close the game to all new players or all players below a certain level. : Handy 'mute' command squelches a player off of all public communication channels : Handy 'freeze' command freezes a player in his tracks: the MUD totally ignores all commands from that player until he's thawed. : Even handier DELETE flag allows you to delete players on the fly.set' command (mentioned above) allows you to freeze/unfreeze/delete/siteok/un-siteok players -- even if they aren't logged in! : Bad password attempts are written to the system log and saved; if someone tries to hack your account, you see "4 LOGIN FAILURES SINCE LAST SUCCESSFUL LOGIN" next time you log on. : Passwords don't echo to the screen; allows 3 bad password attempts before disconnecting you. '' : ''Players aren't allowed to choose their character's name as their password -- you'd be surprised how many do! : "xnames" text file specifies a list of invalid name substrings to prevent creation of characters with overly profane names. Category:History